Gregg Fraley

Practical matters are often given as reasons for not doing creative things. “I’d love to try painting, but I don’t have time for that silly stuff.” “Yeah, I love music, but who can spend an hour a day practicing guitar.” “I hate my job, but I dare not change in these troubled times.” It’s true, we have to be practical. We have to pay mortgages, school fee’s, taxes, car payments there is no end to the bills in a middle class life style. No end to the trouble you can get into taking risks in life, and yet, being practical — all the time — isn’t much fun is it? Yes, we need some stability in our lives, but past

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Persistence is not a sexy concept. Hearing the word one might feel respect, but also a touch of dread. Persistence means working hard on something in those dreary dog days when you see no light at the end of the tunnel. Persistence is not something we usually associate with creativity. And yet, it’s a vital piece of it. It’s easy to start something. Completing things is also a great feeling. It’s that funky bit in the middle that Edison might have called the work clothes of opportunity. Dean Kamen speaks of the inevitable day when a project meets a huge unexpected hurdle — and then everybody wants to bail on it, including you. Don’t. The difference between success and failure

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Smokey Robinson and Barry Gordy, 1981I’ll briefly note here the passing of Motown Records founder, Barry Gordy, and make four points about creativity along the way. I never met him, but I certainly experienced, and continue to experience, the results of his prolific creativity. In his amazing career he created songs, records, stars, companies, good will, and films. First lesson in creativity from Barry Gordy: Create a lot and keep creating a lot. Perhaps his greatest creative skill was simply finding and developing talent. He had a hand in the careers of Jackie Wilson, Mary Wells, The Jackson 5 (and Michael Jackson), Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, The Supremes, The Temptations, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, The Four Tops, and many

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Regrets are something we all carry around. Some of us more lightly than others. Maybe I’m projecting but when I saw “Harold” the other day it occurred to me that his regrets were of the heavier variety. He was working hard on his laptop but occasionally he’d look out the window of the train with a regretful frown on his face. I got out my pen and did a quick sketch. My imagination had him wistfully thinking about a very early crush. When boys are just beginning to get interested in girls there’s that awkward period where you’re scared to ask for a dance, or to even say hello, let alone have a kiss. That doesn’t stop you from thinking

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  Sir Richard Branson, the uber entrepreneur of Virgin fame, contributed a provocative editorial to Sunday’s edition of The Independent. Essentially Branson is making some strong suggestions about how to put the 1 million unemployed young people in the UK to work. Radical ideas Sir Richard. They make so much sense it’s almost guaranteed they won’t happen. Why I think so: They upset the status quo. They require quick action from government. They require big business to step up and help young people for the good of society. So, call me a cynic, but great big radical ideas like his are usually tough sledding to get done. However, the good news is things are so desperate right now common sense

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There is growing attention to the idea that innovation is supported, or not, by that amorphous beast organizational culture. It’s not a new idea, Mel Rhodes defined “Press” as one of his “4 P’s” of group creativity in 1953 (the others being People, Products, and Process). Who knows where Rhodes came up with “Press” — Press is really culture. Stop yawning! The wrong kind of organizational culture can kill innovation. If you’re an individual, consider that you have a personal culture you’ve built up around you (some might call it your life) so in a way the following applies to You to. Get the best engineers and managers and marketeers, have great product ideas, and great process…and you can still

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When I was a young boy I drifted in and out of my imagination. I day dreamed about sports fantasies, the future, space, the nature of God, angels, the lives of movie stars and famous people like JFK, games of my own making, and inventions. And no surprise, I was routinely punished for day dreaming. In order to escape the browbeating I made efforts to stay focused and pay attention. I also started thinking of that “state” as a bad thing and to be avoided. It got me into trouble with those women wearing the Catholic version of a burka. I reminisce here because I want to make the point that imagination is a practice. Like yoga, meditation, guitar, or

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Jena McGregor (@jenamcgregor) wrote an interesting piece recently for the Washington Post titled “Why Brainstorming Doesn’t Work.” Her piece interprets some rather exciting new creativity research done by Steve Smith of Texas A&M and Nicolas Kohn of University of Texas as saying brainstorming doesn’t work. That’s not what the study is saying really. The research by Smith and Kohn is valid and helpful in my view — and does indeed illustrate one of the challenges  of group brainstorming. Essentially, Smith and Kohn say that when people see ideas others have generated in a group brainstorming session the ideas influence — actually inhibit — the groups ability to generate a diverse set of ideas. The test group that didn’t see each

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Innovation isn’t the exclusive domain of big companies and rocket scientists. People with passion can create good things anywhere. Even in the countryside, and in a tiny village like Sawyer, Michigan. Sawyer, Michigan is just big enough to contain my subject here — Fitzgerald’s Restaurant. Why is Fitzgerald’s Restaurant notable enough for a creativity and innovation blog? Many count themselves out of the innovation game because they feel they lack sophistication, or a cutting edge technology. Innovation is a certain kind of sophistication, but it doesn’t require that you live in a top 20 market, or write the latest iPhone app. The restaurant game is notoriously challenging. What’s the difference between one that works and one that doesn’t? At the

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I participated earlier this week in the Oklahoma Creativity Forum 2011. It was an impressively well staged event, as professional a creativity/innovation conference as I’ve seen anywhere in the world. Beyond event management, I have to say the conference had a great feeling, a gusher of creative spark and soul. Let me tell you why I liked it so much: 1. For what it symbolizes, commitment to creativity — The state of Oklahoma is actually doing something about it’s own future. Not many states, countries, or cities move so boldly into action on the resource that is the well-spring of all innovation. The conference — and the state — clearly understand that you don’t get innovation without it’s pre-requsite, creativity.

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